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Also in the February letter, Doug Nelson, Bath Iron Work’s OPC cap- ture manager, said the Coast Guard awards suggest that technical designs from each competitor, as well as their capabilities and facilities – existing and planned – are satisfactory. “So for Phase II, that only leaves cost,” Nelson said. Bath’s OPC team is ex- pected to grow somewhat from the core group that developed its concep- tual design and proposal. Phase I en- gineering, design and planning work will be done in Maine, with support from L-3 Communications in New York and Navantia in Spain. “With its skilled workforce and an outstanding record of designing, build- ing and providing superior life-cycle support for ships, Bath Iron Works is uniquely positioned to build vessels like the Coast Guard’s OPCs,” Maine’s U.S. Senators Susan Collins and An- gus King said in a joint statement on Feb. 11. The OPC would be an excel- lent fi t for the company and would create good jobs in Maine, they said. Collins is a senior member of the Sen- ate Defense Appropriations Subcom- mittee, and King is a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Bath is known for building quality vessels that last. Bath’s USCG cutter Perseus, launched in 1932, sailed for 76 years. The boat was transferred to the Navy during WWII, then re- turned to the USCG for patrolling be- fore it was decommissioned in 1959. Perseus was sold to Circle Line Cruis- es in New York City, where it sailed for another 49 years, and was a rescue boat in the city’s 9/11 disaster. Sister ship USCG Calypso, launched by Bath several months before Perseus, served the Coast Guard and the Navy. OPCs: A Modern-Day, Multi-Missioned Workhorse According to the Coast Guard, the new OPCs are a needed bridge between its National Security Cut- ters and its Fast Response Cutters. The service’s current fl eet of 210- foot and 270-foot Medium Endur- ance Cutters has become expensive to maintain and operate and is in many ways technologically obsolete. Beyond this, the Coast Guard simply can’t afford to replace all of them in a hull-for-hull program. The coming OPC will therefore bridge the mis- sion gap between the two hulls; sat- isfying both requirements. Medium Endurance Cutters are the workhorse of the Coast Guard fl eet, fulfi lling responsibilities for long-distance mis- sions carried out by high endurance cutters and missions closer to shore, performed by patrol boats. Building of the Coast Guard’s fi rst 11 OPCs is likely to extend through 2028. Eastern Shipbuilding’s Nelson Facility SHIPBUILDING www.marinelink.com MN 41 MN May14 Layout 32-49.indd 41 4/21/2014 10:32:41 AM
